


I'll Always Be There For You

by Silver_Warrior_Wolf



Category: Inspector Gadget (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 08:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7611409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver_Warrior_Wolf/pseuds/Silver_Warrior_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Penny feared losing her uncle, and the time she decided to do something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He's Not Coming!

It was a warm summer day, just the kind that would be perfect for splashing through the cool water of a fountain. This, as it happened, was exactly what three year old Penny Dollar was doing at the moment. It was clear out, and since her Mommy and Daddy had the day off, the small family some time for an outing.

The little girl looked back to where her parents were sitting on a bench, her father reading a book to her mother. Excitedly, the little girl waved, eager to catch their attention. Hearing her call, they paused and looked back to her, returning the enthusiastic gesture.

There contented looks, however, vanished in an instant. In a moment, both her Mommy and Daddy looked afraid. Confused as to what could happen to cause this change, Penny spun around to see what could have happened.

Without her noticing, the fountain and the sun both disappeared. Instead, she found herself standing on a barren field without a single person or plant to be seen, and the area was shrouded by ominous clouds.

The ground she was facing was bulging and bubbling, and soon split open completely! Strange creatures of almost every shape and size poured out of the recently opened holes. They were mostly cat-like goblins, but standing like men, and they moved faster than any creature she had ever seen before.

Terror gripped Penny, and she turned to run away from the horrifying wave. In the distance, she could still see her parents, standing still, just as terrified of the oncoming wave as their child was. The toddler shrieked out to them, desperate to reach them before the hideous creatures caught up to her.

This seemed to wake them from their shock, because they responded by racing towards her as well. It seemed like she was going to make it; she'd make it back to her family, and then they could all escape from the oncoming hoard.

That was when _he_ arrived. The ground tore open again, but this time only a single creature emerged. He was larger than the rest of the cat-goblins and clearly was their boss. As soon as he had broken out of the ground, the Goblin-boss turned to her parents, and with a single swipe, struck them dead.

Penny reached their bodies right as they fell. Both were lying back, and she could see where they had been hit. Her father had a single wound in his head; her mother, two wounds in her torso.

The child shrieked and shook her head in horror. No, this could not be happening. Her Mommy and Daddy couldn't be dead! They couldn't!

The Goblin-boss took notice of her them and snatched her up in his claws. The child struggled against the grip desperate to escape.

"You are mine now, girl," the repulsive creature sneered. "No one will come to save you."

"Yew wong!" she yelled back, trying to sound as brave as possible. "My N'uncle Gadge' wi' come an' stop yew!"

The creature laughed a dark laugh. "He's not coming! He's never coming!" With that, the creature raised her up to its mouth and prepared to swallow her.

Crack! Boom!

Penny sat up in her bed as soon as she heard the thunder. It took her a moment to calm down, and another to then realize where she was.

The first thought that came to mind was that this was not her bedroom. After a moment, she recalled that it was, just not her original room. This was her room at her Uncle Gadget's house, now that she had come to live with him.

The next thing she notice was that she was not alone in the bed. For a moment, she almost screamed, but caught herself when she realized that it was only Brain.

The puppy was huddled under the blanket, clearly terrified by the thunder. She reached under to pat him on the head. "Yew a'ight, Bwain?" she asked, trying to sound comforting despite not being fond of the storm herself. "Scawed of t'e fundah?"

Brain nodded, calming down a little bit as the child stroked his coat, only to jump about three feet when there was another crack of thunder. When it had passed, he had gone back to his original position, shaking with a renewed amount of vigor.

Penny, already upset by her nightmare and becoming more and more unnerved with the thunderstorm, continued to talk to the puppy to try to calm her own fears. "Yew know," she said, "whe' we we was wi' Mommy and Daddy, we would stay wi' t'em whenevah it was scawy. Maybe N'Uncle Gadge' will stay wi' us, too. We shou' go ask."

The toddler was hesitant to follow her own advice, mostly since it meant leaving her bed while the dreaded thunderstorm was still going on. Eventually, fear of being alone during the storm overcame fear of going out into the hall, and she forced herself to go. As soon as she had left, Brain padded after her, no more eager than his girl to be left alone with the thunder.

Gadget's room was only a few doors down from where Penny's was. She had expected to find the door closed, as her parent's had usually been, but found to her surprise that it had been left slightly ajar. There wasn't much time to think about this, though, since another crack of thunder spurred the three year old to rush inside without giving much thought to the door.

Once inside, she realized this was the first time she had ever seen her uncle's room. It was rather messy, with articles of clothing laying around the room, along with scattered items that had varying amounts of relation to his cases.

Gadget himself was laying sprawled out on his bed, completely dead to the world. It was clear that the thunderstorm hadn't bothered him in the least.

Not quite sure what to do, considering this was the first time this had happened since she had moved in with him, Penny crept forwards and lightly touched her uncle's face. "N'Uncle Gadge'?" she questioned in a soft voice. "Yew 'wake?"

Barely registering her presence, he mumbled a little in his sleep before turning over and wrapping the blanket around himself. Despite the fact that he had not responded verbally, he had certainly answered her question.

Penny hesitated, before nudging him again. "N'Uncle?" Still there was no response.

Crack-Boom!

The jolt of thunder came unexpectedly and was loud enough to shake the whole house. Frightened by the sudden bolt, Brain leaped up from where he had been sitting behind Penny and jumped into the bed. By mistake, he happened to hit the area of Gadget's shoulders that were still organic. This meant that this time, the inspector could fully feel the eight pound puppy barreling into him.

Gadget awoke with a start, falling out of his bed as he did so. "I can fix it!" he declared as he sat bolt upright, tangled up in his blanket and not fully certain what was going on. "I-what?" he asked, looking around the room in a dazed fashion. "What's going on?"

That was when he spotted his niece looking at him, along with the puppy now attempting to hide under his pillow. "Penny? Brain? What are you doing up?"

"Bwain's scawed of t'e funder," the toddler answered as she walked around to the other side of the bed. "Wanted ta stay wif yew t'night. Can we?"

It was pretty clear to him that the puppy wasn't the only one afraid at the moment. "I don't see any reason why you can't." He stretched out for a moment before going to look for some pants to put on. "Is everything alright with you, Penny?"

The little girl chewed on her lip for a moment, mulling over whether to admit the source of her problem or not. Finally, she decided it would be best to just tell him. "I had a bad dweam," she said in a hushed tone of voice. "It was weally scawy."

Gadget nodded, picking up the little girl and deposited her in his lap. "I see, you had a bad dream. I hate when that happens."

Sensing that the humans were now settled onto the bed, Brain crawled over, resting his head on Penny's lap. The little girl began to pet him as she continued.

"I saw Mommy and Daddy again," she said. "We we'e all goin' out fo' a swim, when t'e watah went 'way. T'en the monstahs came, an' t'en Mommy….an' Daddy…" She broke down into tears, unable to keep calm at the reliving of her parents murder.

Seeing her tears, Gadget responded the way he had ever since the funeral three weeks ago, by pulling the little girl closer. "I know," he replied. "I miss them, too."

Penny sniffed, burying her head in her uncle's shoulder for a moment, before continuing. "When Mommy an' Daddy we'e gone, the big monstah came, an' he caugh' me, and said yew we'n't gonna come ta save me. T'en he ate me."

This part truly did surprise Gadget. "Now, that was just a mean lie," he said, still comforting the weeping toddler. "Of course I'd come for you. I'd always come for you."

"Weally?" his niece asked, wiping a pudgy arm across her face.

"Really," he said. "It wouldn't matter where he took you, I'd come, and I'd save you."

There was another strike of thunder, frightening the child and puppy, who huddled closer to Gadget. It soon was becoming pretty clear he'd have to find some way to distract them if he wanted to help.

Still holding the little girl and the dog, he got up out of the bed and made his way out into the living room. Upon sitting on the couch, he stretched his arm over to the book shelf and selected a board book. "Would you like me to read to you for a while? At least until the thunder stops?"

Penny nodded wordlessly, and he began to read. This did the trick, since they were now more focused on the stories being read than they were on the storm outside. It wasn't long before the storm had ended, but nobody noticed it. Indeed, they sat there for a good while, enjoying the stories.

After about the seventh book, Gadget looked down and noticed that his charges had fallen asleep. Setting the book down, he got up again, gently carrying the duo back to Penny's room.

He carefully deposited the child back into her bed and the puppy into the little basket at the foot. Before he left, he turned back to the little scene and smiled.

"You don't have anything to be afraid of," he said. "I'll always be there for you."


	2. It's a Monster!

Custody meetings. These meetings were never very comfortable to attend, for all parties involved. Five year old Penny could still remember when the first couple of meeting occurred, shortly after her parents' deaths. They had always made her frustrated, and she had thought they had finally ended two years ago.

You see, there had been some difficulty with custody that had come up. It had been clearly stated in Daniel and Andrea's will that, should anything happen to them, John "Gadget" Brown was to become Penny's guardian. That would seem to be clear enough, considering he was the girl's next of kin, and the only family member she had left, considering both sets of grandparents were dead and there were no other aunts or uncles to speak of.

Not everyone was pleased with the arrangement, though. Complaints had been filed to the Department of Child Services, voicing discontent at the arrangement. Occasionally, the complaint would be under the excuse of his job, but most of the time, it became clear what the complaint really was. These people didn't like the idea of leaving a small girl in the care of a cyborg, even if he was the only relation she had left.

Thus, the custody meetings were held again and again. They had mostly happened within the first year and had happened just about all at once. An investigation had been put forth, which found that, despite the complaints, there was nothing that marked John Brown as an unsuitable guardian, and since there was nothing on the records regarding cyborgs, there was no cause for removing the child from his care on those grounds.

Admittedly, Penny didn't understand all of this at her young age. All that she knew was that for some reason that she could not fathom, there were people who didn't like her or her uncle, and these people wanted to keep them apart. She didn't like these people and wished they would just leave them be. When they had finally stopped a few years ago, the little girl had been greatly relieved, and had taken it to mean she was finally going to be allowed to live with her uncle in peace.

So why, she had to wonder as she sat next to her uncle in a meeting between lawyers, were they finding themselves in the same situations all over again?

"There is no way this situation can be legal in the slightest!" Olive Nesbit, an overbearing woman who ran one of the local day-cares, shouted at the top of her lungs. "There must be some law against leaving a child in the custody of a machine!"

Inwardly, Penny bristled. She wasn't quite sure why quite yet, but she knew whenever someone called her uncle a machine, it was an insult. At the moment, she would have liked to shout something right back, but thankfully, their lawyer, Mr. Pelanchi, spoke up first.

"Mrs. Nesbit," he said, trying to sound as professional as possible, "we've already spoken about this. The exact extent and nature of Mr. Brown's prosthetics makes him no less human than he was before. There simply is no more reason to remove her from his care than if he just had a false leg. As for the legality of the matter, there was extensive research done into the matter at the time he took custody. Considering he was the guardian appointed by Mr. and Mrs. Dollar in their will, there would no ground for the removal of the child unless there would be some danger to her well-being."

"You stupid, loop-hole seeking buffoons can't see that its very existence is a danger to her well-being!" the woman snapped, refusing to let the topic go.

Here, Gadget himself tried to speak up. "Now, now, there's no need to insult. I've already taken several mental stability tests," he said calmly, motioning to some of the paperwork lying on the desk. "You're welcome to go over the results. I'm also willing to go through them again, if that will give you some peace of mind."

Completely ignoring what he had said, Mrs. Nesbit went on. "That mechanical monstrosity shouldn't even be out on the streets! It should be locked up somewhere, fare away from anything else! It's a monster! A monster, you hear!"

That was more than Penny was willing to hear. "No he's not!" The five year old sprang up out of her chair, unable to contain herself any more. "He's not a monster! He's a hero who fights bad guys every day! You're lying! You're a liar!" Tears were now streaming down the child's face. "A very, very bad liar!"

"Penny," Gadget said sternly, putting a hand on his niece's shoulder, "that wasn't a very nice thing to say. You need to apologize right now."

The child was still crying hard, and it had gotten to the point that she could no longer form coherent words. Seeing this, he picked her up. "I'll just take her out into the hall until she calms down," he said to the other adults before leaving.

Once outside, it took several minutes before the child was back in a state in which she could talk and understand. When she had, he repeated what he said earlier.

"Now, Penny, that wasn't very nice of you to say," he scolded. "When we go back in there, I expect you to give Mrs. Nesbit an apology, and we will discuss this further when we get home."

"But why?" Penny was confused as to why she was the one getting in trouble. "She was the one saying all those mean things about you. They're not true! You're not a monster." She started to cry again. "I don't want you taken away from me. I don't want you to go away. I wanna stay with you."

Realizing this was stemming from fear, Gadget responded in the way he thought might best help. He picked up the child and held her close. "It's going to be alright," he said in what was almost a hushed whisper. "Neither of us is going anywhere. I haven't done anything that would let them take you away from me, and I'm not giving you up."

This calmed Penny down somewhat, but she was still upset. "Then why did she an' those other people say all those bad things about you, then?" she asked as she wiped her face. "You're a good person. Why would they lie?"

Gadget shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Maybe they think they're telling the truth, and they don't know what they're talking about."

"Then why would they do that?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Well, you know I'm kind of…special, right?"

The five year old nodded. "Uh-huh. You have all sorts of tools, like in your hands, and your hat, and you use them to stop bad guys!"

"That's right." He set her down before continuing. "Well, some people are afraid when things like my tools exist. They think anyone who has them is dangerous, and that those tools should be taken away. Since mine are inside me, they can't take mine away, so they get scared and think I need to be locked up because of it. They think I'm dangerous."

Penny seemed to understand this, but wasn't content with that as an explanation. "That's stupid. You're the good guy. Good guys aren't dangerous."

Her uncle laughed at that response. "Well, maybe, but sometimes people have a hard time knowing who the good guy is and who the bad guy is, and want to take all tools away just in case the bad guy might get it. That might not be very smart, but that doesn't give us the right to yell at them like you just did."

The child looked down at her feet. "I'm sorry."

"Now, I'm not the one you need to apologize to," he scolded. "We're going to go back in, and you are going to give a proper apology to Mrs. Nesbit, and we are going to talk about this more when we get home. Do you understand?"

The child looked down but nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good." Before going in, he placed a hand on her shoulder. "One more thing. No matter what you hear people say, it won't change a thing about our relationship." She looked up at him as he spoke, and he gave a small smile. "You have my promise, no matter what, I will always be there for you."


	3. There was an Ambush...

School was never a particular problem for seven year old Penny Dollar. She was a bright girl who took to her lessons like a fish took to water. True, the topics didn't always interest her, and since Second Graders weren't typically allowed to work on the computer as much as the older kids, she didn't always get the time to work with her interests in technology in her free time. Still, the work never gave her much trouble, and she was eager to please her teachers, so the typical school day usually wasn't a problem.

Occasionally, when her uncle was called away on a mission that took him out of the state, or even the country, but it didn't seem to be too dangerous, she was given permission to miss a couple days of school, provided she was given an amount of work to do while on the trip. She preferred these days, since it meant she got to see the world with her family. True, Uncle Gadget usually needed to be off doing his job, but as long as they both got their work in on time, there was usually plenty of time go on field trips later.

These times were rare. Most often, Uncle Gadget's work kept him in and around the states. Usually, he was called in to investigate gang areas that might, and often did, have some connection with M.A.D. When he was called out to travel, there would often be some complication that would make things too dangerous to bring a child along. That meant that he would be heading out with his partner, and that Penny, along with Brain, would be staying at home with a babysitter.

Until recently, that is. You see, there had been some problems as of late in finding a new partner for Inspector Gadget. His original partner had been his sister and Penny's mother, Andrea Dollar. The two of them, with the aid of Penny's father Daniel, had been nearly unstoppable. Then tragedy struck, and Daniel and Andrea Dollar had been killed.

After their deaths, Gadget had been partnered up with a young recruit named Daphne Data. However, she couldn't stand the good inspector, and after being his partner for two months she completely quit W.O.M.P. and made sure that her contract with the next facility included a "no partners" clause.

After that, Gadget had been assigned to partner after partner. For whatever reason, none of them stuck. Eventually, unwilling to let one of their more successful agents go, but unable to find someone who both liked and could work with the rather eccentric cyborg, the higher ups at W.O.M.P. decided just to send him out solo.

So far, things had gone well. The missions tended to take a little bit longer to go through, since there wasn't anyone to translate what was going on to and from sweet but simple inspector, but the success rate went on like normal, so it seemed that life would continue just as it always had. Just as always, he mostly had domestic cases, had a couple of cases where Penny had to stay at home, and the rare case where she could tag along. So it was completely out of the blue when, one day while her uncle was working domestic, she was picked up by Chief Quimby.

It wasn't that he was a stranger. She had known the chief for a long time, since he had been a friend of her parents as well as her uncle. However, her uncle had always gone out of his way to let Penny know if he wasn't going to be able to pick her up. He once even called Ms. Edmonds, the second grade math teacher, and called her cell phone during class just to make sure Penny knew. Thus, Quimby waiting outside, with no sort of forewarning, was horribly unsettling.

"Where's Uncle Gadget?" she immediately asked, not bothering with any sort of greeting. This was too serious.

When the chief saw that she had made it outside, he approached her. "Penny," he started, "I'm afraid I have some bad news." He made a face, as if not quite certain how to break the news to the seven year old, before continuing. "There was an ambush, and I'm afraid your uncle didn't come out of it quite well."

Penny froze. She knew what an ambush was, and she knew the sort of people he was facing. Her mind immediately flashed to worst case scenario. "He's dead?!" Tears began to gather in her eyes as she started reliving her parents' death all over again.

Seeing her get into this state, Quimby raised his hand. "No, no, he's not dead. He's still very much alive. It's just that he was hurt in the attack, and had to be taken to the hospital."

That calmed the child down. So Uncle Gadget wasn't dead. That at the very least was a relief.

As she calmed down, the chief went on. "Now, it's going to be a little while before he's fully recovered and able to go home, but he's awake now, so you can go see him if you'd like. I'd understand if you'd rather wait for a while, though."

The girl nodded. "I wanna see him." Without saying anything else, she hefted up her backpack and hurried into the car. If her uncle was hurt, she wanted to go to his side as soon as possible.

The hospital wasn't too far away, which was at the very least, a relief on that part. Once there, they had checked in and she was allowed to go to the hospital room. She wasn't quite sure what to expect, but at the moment, she was content just to assure herself that her uncle was really, truly alive and well.

He was alive, but it would be an incredible stretch to call him well. He had been on a case investigating into a M.A.D. drug ring that proved to be a trap, set up for the purpose of catching him unaware and killing him. Thankfully, he had been able to defend himself to a certain degree, and backup had arrived to keep him from being murdered, but not before he had been injured rather severely.

Most of the injuries had been done to his prosthetics, though the organic parts weren't unscathed. Metal was bent in and broken, and there was bits of wiring and circuitry showing from areas that had been cut into. His entire right arm had been cut off completely, and was lying on a table nearby awaiting repairs and reattachment. His face was also bruised and bleeding, and it was pretty clear he was in a lot of pain.

Regardless, Gadget brightened up when he saw Penny. He smiled, which revealed he was also missing some teeth, and called out to her. "Penny!" he greeted, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to pick you up from school today. I hope everything went well."

The child didn't stop for a moment to answer. Instead, as soon as she could, she threw her arms around his neck. "What happened?" she asked, panicked that he could have been hurt like this. "Are you going to be okay?"

Realizing he wasn't going to be able to skip over the topic of his injuries, Gadget smiled and did his best to downplay them. "Oh, I'll be alright," he responded in a rather nonchalant tone. "They've already called Dr. Bradford and Professor Slickstein. They'll put me back together, good as new. Just like last time. It's not a big deal."

From where he was standing, Quimby shook his head. Only Gadget Brown could refer to a missing arm as "not a big deal."

Despite her uncle's insistence that everything was alright, Penny wasn't buying it. "You sure?" she asked, fear clear in her voice. "How did they do this? Can they do it again?"

"Oh, Penny, don't be silly," her uncle responded, as if her fearing that the murderous criminals he stopped for a living would harm him was a small matter. "This was just a fluke. I guess I wasn't paying close attention, and they caught me off guard one time. It's not gonna happen again."

This didn't reassure the child all that much. He was her hero, but she was also rather aware that he could be absent minded. Despite the best of intentions, he would often drift off at the most inopportune of times. If that was what caused his near death today, then there really wasn't a lot to keep it from happening again.

Before she could say anything, though, a nurse came into the room. "Detective Brown," she said as she leaned in. "Dr. Bradford and Professor Slickstien are ready to begin."

"That's great," he responded. "Thanks for the alert."

Turning to Penny, he tried to give a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, it will all be alright. I'll be fixed up, and then everything will be fine." Leaning over, he kissed her forehead. "I'll see you once I'm put back together. Be good for the Quimbys until then, ok?"

The girl nodded. "OK. I'll see you soon." She waved one more time before she left, but to the seven year old, the issue was far from resolved.

That night, once she had finished her homework, she set to trying to figure out what to do. "It's clear Uncle Gadget needs backup," she said to Brain that night as she stroked the dog's head, "but he doesn't have a partner anymore, and I don't think I can convince anyone to do the job." She gave a dry laugh. "And I can't be his backup. That idea's just silly."

Or was it? The thought struck Penny hard, and no matter how she tried to shake it out, it refused to leave. After all, she did tend to find out a lot about her uncle's cases, and just as long as she could keep an eye on him, there wouldn't be too much of an issue.

"Maybe," she muttered quietly. She turned to a simple tablet she had recently been given as a present. It was one of those simple toys that only have access to educational games, but she had already started to take it apart and adjust it. She'd always had an interest in computers, and started watching videos on computer programming when she was five. All she'd have to do was a make a couple of adjustments, and she could use it as a way of doing the research into the cases.

"But then there's school…" That was a problem. She couldn't keep an eye on her uncle if her teachers were going to be keeping an eye on her. "If only there was someone I could work with."

As if in response, Brain moved a bit closer and rolled over onto his back, requesting a belly rub. That gave his girl an idea.

"Brain, do you think you could do something for me?" she asked as she complied with the request.

The dog looked up, turning his ears as if to say, _how can I help?_

"I'm going to need you to follow Uncle Gadget when I can't," she said. "He's can't go on these cases alone, he really can't. I'll help when I can, but there will be times when I can't come. Will you help me when that happens?"

Brain sat up when he heard the request. Raising his front paw in a salute, he gave a _wuff_ of affirmation. After all, it was a dog's duty to make sure his pack was safe, and if a pack-mate was in danger, then he'd work to make sure everything went well.

Putting a finger to her chin, Penny though hard. "Now for a way to keep in contact…" That as when she spotted a little pair of wrist-watch walkie talkies. "Here!" She snatched up one of the watches and hooked it around Brain's collar. "There! That way we can keep in touch, even when we have to split up." She frowned as she looked at the rather obvious set up of a walkie-talkie strapped to a dog collar. "I'll have to hide it a bit better, but it should work for now."

For the rest of the evening, the two of them worked to set up the communications between the two of them. They'd need a firm connection if they were going to be able to help the inspector on his missions.

After she put a few touches on her work and gotten ready for bed, Penny spotted a small picture that was sitting on her dresser. It was a photograph of her family that had been taken shortly after her birth. She was being held by her mother, with her father and uncle standing nearby.

For a moment, the weight of all that had been lost hit the little girl. Her parent were gone, and there had been nothing she could have done to stop it. Now Claw, the same beast who killed them, was coming after her uncle, wanting to destroy the good inspector in the same way.

But Penny wasn't helpless now.

Picking up the picture and moving onto her bed, she smiled. Brain, realizing where she was, hopped up and lay his head on her lap.

"Don't worry, Uncle Gadget," she said quietly, hugging the picture close as she lay. "You won't be alone in the fight ever again. Brain and I are here, and we'll always be there for you."

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is going to be a shorter story, mostly just feel-good fluff. However, it will also set up Penny's character a bit more before I start up the main series. I hope you all enjoy!


End file.
